Another Latie

Can't fall asleep, again, so I shall update. Unfortunately I didn't get as much done I would've liked so far, but here's some of my work. Some pieces are more finished and others in progress. I had a great first semester, and even though I scrambled at the end, I think I gained a lot of knowledge and skills. Learned lots about story structure (I'll post the revised storyboards eventually) from my storyboarding class, such as differences between linear, three-act, and concept-driven stories. In my Drawing from Imagination course (aka perspective bootcamp), I practiced new techniques that helped solve complex drawing problems in different types of perspective, and painstakingly learned how to plot shadows in perspective. It was a very technical class with no room for stylization, but it taught me the importance of structure when drawing from imagination, independent of direct reference. Even though I may rely more on intuition in most of my work, rather than technical accuracy, my process will at least be more informed with the underlying principles of perspective, and thus enhance my more stylized work. Yay for formal training!

Finally, I know I really pushed myself with the visual development class. Nicolas was an awesome teacher, the assignments were incredibly interesting (who doesn't love concept art?), and the inspiration was constantly flowing. I just wish that I had developed a more streamlined process throughout the class, so I could get more done in the end. For our final project we had to render a dynamic beat board (see previous post for progress) in which some/all of our characters interacted. At first the ideas and process flowed smoothly and quickly, from thumbnail to basic layout. However, I could not decide which time of day to settle on for the scene, and my teacher said all 3 lightings/colors worked. So instead of narrowing it to one option, I decided to render two different color/lighting versions of the scene. And it was that last 10% of tweaking that seemed to drag on forever, especially when indulging in details. I don't know if this sort of workflow is common in the industry, but I'm definitely going to have to work on speed, time management, and drawing priorities for future projects. Less is more, they always say.

Ricardo Tracy
Concepts for final project in Viz Dev class









Drawing from Imagination
First drawing was from the beginning of the semester, while the colored drawing was the final assignment and is still in progress



Oh! And please check out a bunch of my friends' group project for the Academy Fall Animation Festival:

Freaker's Ball

I am very excited and honored to be working with a bunch of these folks for their next short, which will be an homage to film noir.